How Platform-Based Buying Helps Publishers – Part 1

We’ve heard it all.  Oversupply.  Glut in inventory.  Commoditization.  This exciting new era in digital marketing will be the death of the publisher.  Providers of quality content simply won’t survive.  All people care about is pushing for a lower eCPM and driving the cost down.  Yadda, Yadda, Yadda.  I go to a lot of conferences and attend a lot of panels (basically I don’t turn down free beer) and representatives of the buy-side always seems so charged up while the sell-side looks like they woke up to learn they managed the Pittsburgh Pirates. But it doesn’t make sense.   Digital spending continues to grow, budgets continue to shift online, and display spending is predicted to grow at a strong rate over the next five years.   Meanwhile, the number of people online has plateaued.  More dollars divided by same number of users should equal rising revenue and profits for publishers.  Right?  Well, actually, no, that’s not what is happening.  Publishers are seeing downward trends in pricing and are finding that buyers don’t actually care about them or their site, they simply want to find a specific audience and, barring porn and malware, they don’t care how or where they get it.  And the chorus screams “Commoditization!”  I don’t actually believe there is commoditization of display media.  And while the symptoms of it do exist, I believe this can and will be solved.  Commoditization implies that all individual units of a good are the same and are capable of mutual substitution.   I’ve seen site level performance reports and the data simply does not bear out that all media is created equal.  Rather than commoditization, what we have here is insufficient tools for buyers and sellers to really value impressions.  It all looks the same, or at least I can’t figure out how it’s different, so I’ll assume it’s all the same and not worry about it.  That’s how buyers are thinking.

Read More: DisplayAndSearch.com

Magnetic Makes Search Data Accessible for All Demand Side Platforms

Magnetic (www.magnetic.is) announced partnerships with several leading demand-side platforms (DSPs) today, including Invite Media, MediaMath, XA.net and [x+1]. The Magnetic data marketplace provides DSPs, advertisers and publishers with user search data, which is then used as a key indicator of intent that can be applied for any ad campaign. Other DSP partners include DataXu, Lucid Media and Rocket Fuel Inc.. Interactive media and data buyers interested in accessing the marketplace can visit www.magnetic.is or send email to signup@magnetic.is.

By making search data easily accessible to DSPs, Magnetic is evolving a new class of ‘search DSPs’ and empowering their businesses with the potential of the SEM market:

• “Our partnership with Magnetic offers our clients easy access to search targeting data,” said Nathaniel Turner, Invite Media’s Founder and CEO. “Our Bid Manager© platform gives media buyers a competitive edge through the effectiveness of SEM on highly targeted display media across a massive pool of inventory.”
• “MediaMath is focused squarely on delivering best-in-class technology that enables agencies to better manage day-to-day strategy without always having to contend with execution,” said Marta Martinez, MediaMath’s senior vice president of operations and business development. “Integrating Magnetic’s data into our industry-leading TerminalOne platform further enhances our ability to drive results for enterprise-class clients.”
• “Our CPMatic ad platform now allows large and small advertisers alike instant, easy access to keyword data for their display campaigns,” said Rob Leathern, CEO of XA.net. “Whether they are buying self-service via cpmatic.com or via our account team, every advertiser can leverage their keyword learnings to immediately benefit using search data from the Magnetic marketplace.”
• “We’ve been encouraged by data we’ve applied through Magnetic,” said John Nardone, CEO of [x+1]. “Together, we’ve allowed marketers to identify high-quality prospects who have made their purchasing intentions known. With the precise segmentation capabilities of our online targeting platform, enhanced with Magnetic’s search data, we are making display advertising more relevant than ever before.”

Read More: Magnetic.is

Software Is Media

I’ve made this point in several talks I’ve given recently so for those of you who attended or watched the talks on video aren’t new to this meme. But I thought I’d share it with the AVC community.  As software has moved from running on local machines to running in the browser a number of important things have happened. One of the most important changes is software has become media.  Here’s a definition of media I pulled from TechTerms

“media” refers to various means of communication. For example, television, radio, and the newspaper are different types of media. The term can also be used as a collective noun for the press or news reporting agencies.

Media are the tools that are used to communicate. And software that runs on the web is part of the media landscape. That has certainly been true for things like online publications and online video and they are accepted as part of the media landscape. But I think all software should be characterized and thought of as media.

Read More: AVC.com